The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-09-03
KEEPING a DIARY,
Advantages Calculated to Result from
Recording Daily Events.

Advantage Calculated to Result from
Recording Daily Events.
Many people regard the keeping of a
diary as meritorious occupation. The
young are urged to take up this cross;
it is supposed to benefit girls especially.
Whether women should do it is to some
minds not an open question, although
there is on record the case of the
Frenchman who tried to shoot himself
when he heard that his wife was keep
ing diary. This intention of suicide
may have arisen from the fear that his
wife was keeping record of his own
peccadilloes rather than of her own
thoughts and emotions. Or it NAV
have been from the fear that she was
putting down those little coniugal
remarks which the husband always
dislikes to have thrown up to him, and
which woman can usually quote
accurately, it may be for years, it may
be forever, without the help of diary.
So we can appreciate without approx
ing the terror of the Frenchman at
living on and on in the same house with
growing diary. For it is not simply
that this little book of judgement is
there in black and white, but that the
maker of it is increasing her power of
minute observation and analytic express
sion. In discussing the question
whether woman should keep diary
it is understood that it is not a mere
memorandum of events and engage
ments, such as both men and women
Of business and affairs necessarily keep,
but the daily record which sets down
feelings, emotions and impressions and
criticises people and records opinions.
But this is question that applies to
men as well as to women,
1t has been assumed that the diary
serves two good purposes: it is dis
culinary exercise for the keeper of it
and perhaps moral guide; and it has
great historical value. AS to the first,
it may be helpful to order, method,
discipline and it may be an indulgence
of spleen, whims and unwholesome
criticism and conceit. The habit of say
ing right out what you think of every
body is not good one and the record
of such opinions and impressions, while
it is not SO mischievous to the public as
talking may be, is harmful to the re-
corder. And when we come to the
historical value of the diary, we confess
to a growing suspicion of it. 1t is such
| q Hnad1v rrhar - 70 io.bt
after the passage of years, 1t has an
authority which the spoken words of
its keeper never had. 1t is ex parte
and it can not be cross-examined. The
,upposition is that being contemporaries
GUS with the events spoken of, it must
be true and that it is an honest record.
Now, as a matter of fact, we doubt if
people are any more honest as to
themselves or others in a diary than
out OF it; and rumors, reported facts
and impressions set down daily in the
leat and haste of the prejudical hour
are about as likely to be wrong rs right.
Two diaries of the same event rarely
agree. And in turning over an old
diary we never know what to allow for
the personal equation. The diary is
greatly relied on by the writers of his
tory, but the Drawer doubts if there is
any such liar in the world, even when
she keeper of it is honest. 1t is certain
10 be partisan and more liable to be
misinformed than a newspaper, which
exercises some care in view of imme-
date publicity. The writer happens
20 know of two diaries which record, on
he testimony of eye witnesses, the cir
,umstances of the last hours of Garfield,
and they differ utterly in essential par
;iculars. One of these may turn up
fifty years from now and be accepted
as true. An infinite amount OF gossip
goes into diaries about men and women
that would not stand the test of a
moments contemporary publication.
But by and by it may all be used to
smirch or brighten unjustly some ones
character. Suppose q man in the Army
If the Potomac had recorded daily all
his opinions of men and events. Read
ng it over now, with more light and a
ulster knowledge of character and of
measures, is it not probable that he
would find it a tissue of misconceptions?
Few things are actually what they seem
;oday; they are colored both by mis-
apprehensions and by moods. If man
writes letter OF makes report of an
occurrence for immediate publication,
subject to universal criticism, there is
some restraint on him. In his private
letters, or diary especially, he is apt to
set down what comes into his head at
he moment, often without much effort
at verification. -Harper'S Magazs1se.